Quotes by Catherine the Great

“Where does destiny end and choice begin?”

“To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next da...”

“Books were her refuge. Having set herself to learn the Russian language, she read every Russian book she could find. But French was the language she preferred, and she read French books indiscrimin...”

“The more a man knows, the more he forgives.”

“A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.”

“One cannot always know what children are thinking. Children are hard to understand, especially when careful training has a custom them to obedience and experience has made them cautious in conversa...”

“Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.”

“I beg you take courage the brave soul can mend even disaster. ”

“I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.”

“In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.”

“I praise loudly. I blame softly.”

“In January in Northern Russia, everything vanishes beneath a deep blanket of whiteness. Rivers, fields, trees, roads, and houses disappear, and the landscape becomes a white sea of mounds and hollo...”

“If a tree is bent, every goat will jump on it.”

“She had dealt with her pregnancy by wrapping herself in dreams.”

“A great wind is blowing and that gives you either imagination or a headache.”

“First health then wealth then pleasure and do not owe anything to anybody.”

“Power without [the people's] confidence is nothing.”

“I shall be an autocrat that's my trade and the good Lord will forgive me that's his.”

“This marriage had resulted from impulse: he had seen her on a high-flying swing at Tsarkoe Selo and her skirt, flared by the breeze, had exposed her ankles; he had proposed the following day.”

“I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.”